Department of Clinical Sciences of Companion Animals, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2013 Apr 16;8(4):e61487. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061487. Print 2013.
Somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) are used in humans and animals to increase knowledge about nociception and pain. Since the SEP in humans increases when noxious stimuli are administered unpredictably, predictability potentially influences the SEP in animals as well. To assess the effect of predictability on the SEP in animals, classical fear conditioning was applied to compare SEPs between rats receiving SEP-evoking electrical stimuli either predictably or unpredictably. As in humans, the rat's SEP increased when SEP-evoking stimuli were administered unpredictably. These data support the hypothesis that the predictability of noxious stimuli plays a distinctive role in the processing of these stimuli in animals. The influence of predictability should be considered when studying nociception and pain in animals. Additionally, this finding suggests that animals confronted with (un)predictable noxious stimuli can be used to investigate the mechanisms underlying the influence of predictability on central processing of noxious stimuli.
躯体感觉诱发电位（SEP）在人类和动物中被用于增加对伤害性感受和疼痛的认识。由于人类的 SEP 在给予不可预测的有害刺激时会增加，因此可预测性也可能会影响动物的 SEP。为了评估可预测性对动物 SEP 的影响，应用经典的恐惧条件反射来比较接受 SEP 诱发电刺激的大鼠的 SEP，这些刺激是可预测的还是不可预测的。与人类一样，当 SEP 诱发刺激不可预测地给予时，大鼠的 SEP 会增加。这些数据支持了这样的假设，即有害刺激的可预测性在动物对这些刺激的处理中起着独特的作用。在研究动物的伤害感受和疼痛时，应考虑可预测性的影响。此外，这一发现表明，面对（可）预测性有害刺激的动物可用于研究预测性对有害刺激的中枢处理的影响的机制。
